TEMPUS-Phare Joint European Project CD-JEP-31084-2003 Conference papers & recommendations 29 February 2008 - 2 March 2008
Lebanese University Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management		European Commission The inter-university cooperation program

International Scientific Conference
- Papers & Recommendations -

“Challenges for Higher Education: The case of Travel, Tourism, Transportation and Hospitality Studies”

 Conference Recommendations  Conference Papers

This International Scientific Conference is organised within the framework of a Tempus-Meda Joint European Project (JEP-31084-2003), approved and supported by the Directorate-General for Education & Culture of the European Commission and the European Training Foundation. The Conference is a thorough attempt to examine issues related to higher education in the fields of tourism, travel, transportation and hospitality and their relation to present and future challenges. It aims to bring together educators, academic leaders, policy makers and practitioners, to exchange and discuss ideas and research, and to enhance cooperation initiatives in tourism studies and research. Particular emphasis is on bringing together academics and practitioners from the Eastern Mediterranean area and from the rest of Europe.

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Conference Recommendations   ( Conference recommendations.doc )

·       Revise periodically curriculum of studies and standards of education to comply with latest technologies and market demand.

·       Coordination with other Arab universities if possible.

·       Encouraging students to engage in active life, and continuous training through “life-time learning approach “becoming a basic requirement to allow students/employees to face the changes in their fields of specialization (for example software, hardware, distance and open learning.

·       The teaching methods should be flexible and rely on different approaches such as: case studies, role playing brainstorming, with special emphasis on research based learning and problem-centered learning.

·       Teachers should be very well prepared when they enter classrooms such as structuring the material to be taught with solid outline and using a variety of resources and skills in order to transfer knowledge in the right way.

·       When it comes to the students they should have an important role as recipient of information. Their learning should be linked to practice since learning by doing is an excellent way of transfer of knowledge in the field of Tourism.

·       Curriculum in the field of hospitality and tourism should be adapted (or improved) by taking into consideration the profile of students who start their professional life, as well as the types of responsibilities they assume at work.

·       Research orientation should be highly encouraged in tourism universities because it is only through research that knowledge can be acquired and built on in this field of hospitality and tourism that lacks specialized roots.

·       Promoting mobility (professors + students), social dimensions and responsibility in education, and data collection.

·       Universities are critical nerves of social cohesion and birth-places of political and cultural discourse, so they can in no way be treated like state-controlled companies and infrastructural facilities.

·       Working toward the establishment of an independent national committee to sponsor quality at the university level and encourage those universities to continually engage in a self-assessment process with the help of external resources and to publicize this evaluation in the framework of a general policy for quality assurance.

·       The ability to use technology is a required skill in the workforce and remains a tool that must be used properly in an appropriate learning environment.

·       Lebanon and other countries could benefit tremendously from the global inclination of distance learning, if it could find itself a new role of importer as well as exporter of this higher education.

·       Create and support a forum to connect scientists, information technologists, policy makers, and practitioners, for the purpose of rethinking in the age of globalization and information.

·       Support mechanisms for the exchange of ideas and experiences in using educational technologies.

·       Encourage explorations and experimentations to push the frontiers of the potential of information technologies and communications for more effective learning.

·       Emphasize on professional foreign languages’ skills to improve communication competencies in a complex industry (travel, tourism and hospitality), within the Faculty of Tourism.

·       Necessity of  coordination between the Lebanese University and other universities and the Ministry of Higher Education concerning the legality and application of LMD educational system according to Bologna’s process (allocation of credits/teaching hours, grades distribution, etc..)

Conference Papers